The following afternoon I went to Dad’s. I had put on a white shirt, black cotton trousers, and white basketball shoes. In order not to feel so utterly naked, as I did when I wore only a shirt, I took a jacket with me, slung it over my shoulder and held it by the hook since it was too hot outside to wear it.

I jumped off the bus after Lundsbroa Bridge and ambled along the drowsy, deserted summer street to the house he was renting, where I had stayed that winter.

He was in the back garden pouring lighter fluid over the charcoal in the grill when I arrived. Bare chest, blue swimming shorts, feet thrust into a pair of sloppy sneakers without laces. Again this getup was unlike him.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I said.

“Have a seat.”

He nodded to the bench by the wall.

The kitchen window was open, from inside came the clattering of glasses and crockery.

“Unni’s busy inside,” he said. “She’ll be here soon.” His eyes were glassy.

He stepped toward me, grabbed the lighter from the table, and lit the charcoal. A low almost transparent flame, blue at the bottom, rose in the grill. It didn’t appear to have any contact with the charcoal at all, it seemed to be floating above it.

“Heard anything from Yngve?” he asked, of my older brother.

“Yes,” I said. “He dropped by briefly before leaving for Bergen.”

“He didn’t come by,” Dad said.

“He said he was going to, see how you were doing, but he didn’t have time.”

Dad stared into the flames, which were lower already. Turned and came toward me, sat down on a camping chair. Produced a glass and bottle of red wine from nowhere. They must have been on the ground beside him.

“I’ve been relaxing with a drop of wine today,” he said. “It’s summer after all, you know.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Your mother didn’t like that,” he said.

“Oh?” I said.

“No, no, no,” he said. “That wasn’t good.”

“No,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, emptying the glass in one swig.

“Gunnar’s been round, snooping,” he said, of my uncle. “Afterward he goes straight to Grandma and Grandad and tells them what he’s seen.”

“I’m sure he just came to visit you,” I said.

Dad didn’t answer. He refilled his glass.

“Are you coming, Unni?” he shouted. “We’ve got my son here!”

“OK, coming,” we heard from inside.

“No, he was snooping,” he repeated. “Then he ingratiates himself with your grandparents.”

He stared into the middle distance with the glass resting in his hand. Turned his head to me.

“Would you like something to drink? A Coke? I think we’ve got some in the fridge. Go and ask Unni.”

I stood up, glad to get away.

Gunnar was a sensible, fair man, decent and proper in all ways, he always had been, of that there was no doubt. So where had Dad’s sudden backbiting come from?

After all the light in the garden, at first I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face in the kitchen. Unni put down the scrub brush when I went in, came over and gave me a hug.

“Good to see you, Karl Ove.” She smiled.

I smiled back. She was a warm person. The times I had met her she had been happy, almost flushed with happiness. And she had treated me like an adult. She seemed to want to be close to me. Which I both liked and disliked.

So I’ve beenreading the “My Struggle” series by Karl Ove Knausgaard. I’m almost through the third of six books, and the fourth book is coming out fairly soon. I was excited to see an excerpt of the fourth book published on Vice. You can read the rest of it here. It’s a good way to while away part of your lunch hour. What I like about Karl Ove as a character (since the books are ‘fictional’) is that I relate to him. I have similar anxieties, even if my experiences are completely different. What I wonder is if other people feel the same way.

What do you think about Knausgaard’s work? Have you read his books? Do you relate to Karl Ove the character? How do you feel about semi-autobiographical works of ‘fiction’?

I guess the theme this time is books that are kind of a little bit sort of really quite depressing in some respects. These are books that I’d probably classify as various shades of grey. I guess I should try to maybe make this series somewhat thematic in nature, though what I do tend to read follows certain patterns – often I’ll read in the same genre or theme for a while before moving on.

Primo Levi

Survival in Auschwitz – Primo Levi

I suppose what this book reminded me of a lot is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn. The barbaric pointlessness of the camps is echoed in that book, though perhaps not as strongly. While Denisovich is not directly biographyical per se, Levi’s book is, in my mind, more about bearing witness and recording the events that took place in Auschwitz in time – it was written shortly after the end of the War. It is a fascinating and horrifying book – the matter of fact tone hammers in the reality of what happened.

The Road feelings

The Road – Cormac McCarthy

I probably shouldn’t have started and finished reading this in one night before I went to bed. I found it a relatively quick read due to McCarthy’s concise writing style, which I’m still not sure if I like. It’s an efficient vehicle for telling a story, but I suppose I do crave for more detail sometimes, but that’s more in my nature than anything else. It has a compelling world, somewhat familiar, faded grey. The world in The Road is a terrifying place. I probably wouldn’t make it, though to be honest, it doesn’t seem like anyone will – the world is unforgiving. The book is stark in prose and in setting.

Essentially Winter’s Bone

Winter’s Bone – Daniel Woodrell

Another grey book. I read most of this on the train to Toronto when I went with dad this week to see the Alex Coleville retrospective. I liked this book quite a bit because mysteries appeal to me greatly, as well as foreign settings so to speak. The language in the book is interesting to me in its foreignness to my person – I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from the Ozarks. The book too focuses on women, and Ree is a strong character. All in all I enjoyed it, though I’m not sure if I’ll see the film or not, since I already know how it ends.

I could lie and say this is in Norway or Sweden like in the book, but it’s actually in Helsinki, at the harbour.

My Struggle Book 2 – Karl Ove Knausgaard

I bought this book back in January along with Book 1, and while I managed to get through the first book relatively quickly, I stopped and started Book 2. I think it is because I am closer to the character Karl Ove in the first book but in the second, he’s at a different life stage. I do enjoy this kind of odyssey and I don’t regret reading it. I’m now on Book 3. I think I like boring books, to be honest… I heard an interview with Karl Ove on the CBC and thought it was interesting, though it did really strike me that character Karl Ove and real Karl Ove are very similar, and he sounded exactly how I imagined. I relate really quite strongly to him and his awkwardness… Maybe I’ll write a post once I finish reading all six volumes.

I just got this idea for an ongoing series, that I’m going to call “Books I have recently read.” The title kind of gives it away, I guess. This series is probably just going to be my comments and thoughts on things I’ve recently finished reading (within the past two weeks or so, I suppose depending on the gap between posts). However, I won’t give the books in question a numerical rating, because it’s just too hard, and it’s a pain in the bum.

I bought this book on impulse a few weeks ago when the Chapters at Richmond and John was closing (RIP). I also bought a book on Roman Britain. I used to be really keen on this series, which features a grumpy Icelandic detective named Erlendur. I mean in writing that that I bought each book as it came out, but as I ran out of material to buy, my interest slowly waned. When I looked up Indriðason online, I discovered interestingly that this was the first book translated into English from the series. I think that the titles chosen by the translators for the series are evocative and interesting – the first one I read was called “Silence of the Grave,” a phrase which has stuck with me through the years. In any case, my notions of the timeline of the “Reykjavik Murder Mystery” (RMM) series are a little bit wonky, particularly those parts which deal with Erlendur’s daughter, Eva Lind. I did enjoy reading Jar City, though it didn’t take me long. I suppose the others didn’t either. The RMM series is characterised by a bit of a ‘slow burn’ in that often Erlendur has to examine the past to understand the crime of the present, which is pleasant enough to read. To be honest, I think this is more of a ‘winter’ book than not, but it’s still worthwhile for any detective story fan.

Granta is a literary magazine featuring short stories. Short stories are possibly my favourite format of literature, in that space is limited and they tend to be a lot ‘tighter’ narratively than novel-length endeavours. I also like the limitations of short stories as well, particularly when stores end abruptly or without a concrete resolution, so that it leaves a stronger impression. I often imagine the end. I like Granta in particular because the stories aregroupedaroundaparticulartheme. This issue (issues come out seasonally) is themed around Japan, something for which I’ve always held a fascination. My dad bought it for me around when it first came out, and I’ve been reading it in dribs and drabs over the past few months or so. I particularly enjoyed David Mitchell’s (a personal favourite author, I have to admit) contribution, Variations on a Theme by MisterDonut. David Mitchell excels at telling one story from a number of points of view (see Cloud Atlas). This story in particular took place over the same (short) period of time, and each character was given the opportunity, so to speak, to describe the situation. I think I might try to write something like this, as a sort of exercise. I also enjoyed the graphics and drawings throughout as well. My other favourite story in this issue is Kyoko Nakajima’s Things Remembered and Things Forgotten. I think it’s delicate, and the characters really come out of the page. I keep thinking about the ending of the story; it’s shocking in an unassuming way. In any case, I always like reading Granta.

I have been reading other books, but I have yet to finish them, so I won’t post about them now. Right now I’m reading Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book 2 (A Man in Love). I really enjoyed the first book. It reminded me a lot, in some senses, of David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green, except that the narrative jumps from past to present often. I suppose many good writers crib from real life (Mitchell in the case of his stuttering and Knausgaard in the case of his, well, everything).